A mother and son living in a Walmart parking lot in North Dakota in 2012.Credit…Eugene Richards
By Matthew Desmond, The New York Times, March 9, 2023
In the past 50 years, scientists have mapped the entire human genome and eradicated smallpox. Here in the United States, infant-mortality rates and deaths from heart disease have fallen by roughly 70 percent, and the average American has gained almost a decade of life. Climate change was recognized as an existential threat. The internet was invented.
On the problem of poverty, though, there has been no real improvement — just a long stasis. As estimated by the federal government’s poverty line, 12.6 percent of the U.S. population was poor in 1970; two decades later, it was 13.5 percent; in 2010, it was 15.1 percent; and in 2019, it was 10.5 percent. To graph the share of Americans living in poverty over the past half-century amounts to drawing a line that resembles gently rolling hills. The line curves slightly up, then slightly down, then back up again over the years, staying steady through Democratic and Republican administrations, rising in recessions and falling in boom years.
What accounts for this lack of progress? It cannot be chalked up to how the poor are counted: Different measures spit out the same embarrassing result. When the government began reporting the Supplemental Poverty Measure in 2011, designed to overcome many of the flaws of the Official Poverty Measure, including not accounting for regional differences in costs of living and government benefits, the United States officially gained three million more poor people. Possible reductions in poverty from counting aid like food stamps and tax benefits were more than offset by recognizing how low-income people were burdened by rising housing and health care costs.
More than 550 researchers, advocates, educators, community stakeholders, clinical and practitioner groups, persons with lived experience, legislators, and representatives from state agencies, among others, attended a statewide summit in Raleigh, North Carolina—“Leveraging North Carolina’s Assets to Prevent Child Trauma,” April 27-28.
Diana Fishbein, Ph.D., senior scientist in the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), University of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill, and the primary organizer of the event, said the purpose of the Summit was to “scaffold community activism with solid research and supportive legislative and agency policies.”
Melissa Clepper-Faith, MD, MPH, who works with Fishbein in FPG, co-chaired the event, and said, “Time spent making connections across all these groups was precious.”
“What became clear is that NC is primed and ready to institute the reforms needed to protect our children from harm. We are ahead of many other states given the dozens of entities working toward this goal. However, there’s a difference between intervening at the level of the risk factor for trauma and focusing our efforts on the underlying social and structural determinants of trauma,” said Fishbein.
“We must move upstream to the roots of the problem, such as the uneven distribution of resources and opportunities, health disparities, racism and discrimination, poverty, violence, and other adversities, to strive to eradicate the sources of trauma before it’s felt”. said Fishbein.
“The more than 50 speakers – all but three were from NC – were all outstanding and 100% aligned with our agenda to activate communities using solid research and supportive legislative and agency policies,” said Fishbein, adding, “Rather than exhaustion after two days of back-to-back talks, our speakers energized us around a common goal and hope for what we can do collectively to exert a profoundly meaningful impact on child trauma.”
In a post-Summit report to attendees, Fishbein and Clepper-Faith said the Summit was a “call to action to establish a protocol for partnerships across NC that can play an instrumental role in invoking meaningful change to prevent trauma.”
Their report detailed the need for an action plan based on
The notion that community activism is at the heart of true change. Community members must be the central decision-makers, as reflected throughout all our discussions and action plans. We want to lift up the voices of “quiet constituents” to be sure they are heard and are co-equal in the co-creation process.
The recognition that solid, culturally sensitive research provides the foundation, backing and support for activism at the community level and policy change. That tack ensures our methods are well-tested and that we can expect desirable results.
The need for agency-level and legislative policies that are informed by communities and the existing evidence about what works to implement, scale and sustain that change.
“This is the beginning, not the end,” said Fishbein.
The organizers detailed next steps, which include the production of an Executive Summary and 6-8 articles on key topics raised during the summit.
“We will also work on a set of specific policy recommendations to share with the General Assembly, state agencies and local officials. There will be webinars—we welcome the opportunity to work with some of you on specialized topics—meetings, and other follow-on activities,” said Clepper-Faith.
Clepper-Faith and Fishbein also said they advocate for “a task force comprised of a wide range of constituent groups and individuals to co-create a statewide action plan for NC.”
For opportunities to become involved and advocate nationally for policies that consider evidence from trauma science, Fishbein invited attendees to visit the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives: https://www.npscoalition.org/. There, speaker Whitney Marris’ training in advocacy is available on the home page by scrolling down for the video “Science Advocacy Training.”
“Another avenue for advocacy at the national and community levels is with the Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy and practice, CTIPP, directed by our speaker Jesse Kohler, who is the group’s executive director.”
“We also recommend joining and turning to PACEs Connection, which supported the Summit with social media and networking efforts. PACEs Connection works across NC and around the world to raise awareness of the impact of positive and adverse childhood experiences across the lifespan, and to prevent and heal trauma. PACEs Connection helped boost attendance for the Summit as a part of its critical work to promote resilient communities,” said Fishbein.
Summit sponsors and contributors included the FPG, The University of North Carolina Seminar Series, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SmartStart, HopeStar, Child Trust Foundation, Duke Endowment, Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina, KB Reynolds Trust, the Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy and Practice, the National Prevent Science Coalition, and summit coordinators, Wake AHEC.
This report is absolutely inspirational! A lot of groundwork and effort must have gone into bringing this array of concerned parties together. May the force be with you! Obviously the potential for improving many lives and families in North Carolina is terrific. This also serves as a template for other states as we all work to create/recreate a humane and empathetic civil society.
The question remains: does this coalition have the momentum to confront the political gerrymandering and the legislative imposition of values that do not support every family and do not value every human life equally?
Juneteenth marks the day—June 19, 1865—when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, led by Union Army general Gordon Granger. He announced General Order No. 3 that proclaimed freedom for all enslaved people in Texas, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The state was the last of the Confederacy that had institutional slavery.
Black communities began celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston in 1866, and since then the commemoration spread across the United States. On June 15, 2021, it was finally recognized by the U.S. government as a federal holiday.
This This week’s “History. Culture. Trauma.” podcast examines trauma and resilience, not just at the individual level but at the systems and cultural level,” says Ingrid Cockhren, podcast co-host and CEO of PACEs Connection, who examines the questions, “How has the trauma of slavery and genocide impacted our current society? Why are the cultural manifestations of trauma, that is, community violence, school shootings, etc., so pervasive?
In this episode recognizing Juneteenth, Cockhren and guest Brandon Jones will discuss the historical and current context of Juneteenth, how it is recognized.
Jones, the executive director of the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health (MACMH), has a consulting and training background in addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), historical and intergenerational trauma, social/emotional Intelligence, leadership, and intercultural development inventory.
Jones holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of Minnesota, a master’s in community psychology from Metropolitan State University, and a master’s in psychotherapy from Adler Graduate School. He is also a 2013 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow. He provides “the MACMH staff and board with the leadership and vision necessary to keep MACMH at the forefront of mental health education and advocacy,” he explains.
Jones says he lives by the motto of, “Live life with purpose on purpose.”
To listen to History. Culture. Trauma. this Thursday at 1 p.m. PT, 4 p.m. ET, please click here.
‘Cumulative poverty over many years is the fourth leading cause of death in this country.’ Photograph: Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
By Reverend William Barber and Gregg Gonsalves, The Guardian, June 22, 2023
Can you name the top 10 causes of death in America? Without too much trouble, most Americans could likely come up with some of them: cancer, heart disease, stroke, accidents. But it would come as a surprise to many to know that poverty is right up there with these other dreaded scourges – much higher, in fact, than many ills that have inspired investigative committees, major policy investments and sustained attention from the public and private sectors in American life.
A recent study by one of our colleagues shows that cumulative poverty over many years is the fourth leading cause of death in this country. Current poverty – just being poor right now – is seventh on that list, and it alone causes 10 times as many deaths as homicide, close to five times as many deaths as gun violence, and 2.5 times as many deaths as drug overdoses. Cumulative poverty that lingers year after year is associated with approximately 60% more deaths than current poverty, putting only heart disease, cancer and smoking-related deaths ahead in the number of Americans it kills.
But if this is true, why do we hear so much about crime rates, opioids and gun violence in America, but so little from our elected leaders about the crisis of poverty? Why is there no “Surgeon General’s Warning” on low-wage jobs? The relationship of poverty to disease and death is a well-established fact detailed in reports by the World Health Organization, the World Bank and our own government. But we as a people have become numb to the unnecessary deaths that are normalized by the ways we often think and talk about the economy in public life.
While news of mass shootings, such as the July 3 shooting deaths of five men in Philadelphia, mirror the rash of shootings in 2022 and dominate media feeds, community gun violence takes more lives and impacts more people in the United States.
This week the PACEs Connection podcast History. Culture. Trauma, again focuses on gun violence in America, with a conversation departing from the focus on mass shootings, to instead look at community violence and solutions to community violence with policy analyst and activist Timothy Hughes.
“Whereas, active shooter situations and school shootings tend to dominate our mainstream news outlets, community gun violence is often not given as much attention,” said Ingrid Cockhren, PACEs Connection CEO and co-host of the podcast.
“Community violence overwhelmingly impacts low-income communities and communities of color. Mainstream news coverage of this type of violence seldom focuses on mental health, trauma or even real solutions. Instead, violence in these communities is often viewed through the lens of culture.” said Cockhren.
Hughes, who currently serves as a policy consultant at Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, is also commentator, columnist, community organizer, educator, human rights advocate, and public intellectual. He works at the intersection of public policy and social justice and has been involved with Gideon’s Army in Nashville, Tennessee, and their group of community members called Violence Interrupters.
Hughes appeared in a PACEs Connection webinar about gun violence with Cockhren, who hosted several 2022 events to explore gun violence, including the first episode of the History, Culture, Trauma podcast in which she and PACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens discussed “How the News Media Suck at Violence Reporting” and how “integrating knowledge of the science of positive and adverse childhood experiences could help reduce and prevent violence,(and) help reduce systemic racism and its effects.”
“In this year (2023), there have been more mass shootings in America than in any other year on record. As of May 8, 2023, there had been 131 mass shootings with four or more people wounded or killed so far as compared to 113 at the same time last year. Since 2020, America has been ravaged by a pandemic and endured political divide, nationwide protests and civil unrest. It is apparent that the collective traumas have accelerated America’s already dire gun violence crisis,” said Cockhren.
Tune in Thursday at 1 p.m. PT; 4 p.m. ET, to hear more of the discussion on the community gun violence as a social justice issue, and ways to reduce community gun violence.
Carey Sipp 3/11/231:00 PM
Carey Sipp 